(Fwd) Banning Foreign Scholars in India.

[Gail Coelho]

At 12:29 AM 9/14/99 +0000, you wrote:
>
>Inspite of its constrains, seminars and lectures etc and general academic and
>intellectual activity in India is open and before the public gaze.
>Indian academics are strong enough to confront any damaging propoganda that
>is feared to
>be indulged in by foreign scholars, a beaucratic filter is not needed.
>Bharat Gupt
>Assoc Prof, Delhi Univ.

I agree, I think Indian academics *are* strong and alert enough to confront
any  negative effects that there may be from allowing foreign researchers
to work in India. Despite all the accusations of racism against western
scholars that have been floating around this list, I (based on direct
experience with them) do not believe that academics in the US is generally
racist or can even afford to be racist in the current era.

There are of course negative effects that can result from letting in
foreign scholars -- namely the missionary threat and the CIA threat!!
There's little one can do about the latter, its inevitable and unavoidable
and why worry about what you can't stop. Personally what I have a problem
with is the danger of letting in a lot of missionaries (not all
missionaries, just the agressive evangelical ones, bent on converting the
world to their own beliefs) disguised as research scholars into the
country. But even there, I think we have enough secular organizations
(especially NGOs) spread out across India, who could quickly identify
researchers who try to mix religious activity with academic research. And
they would easily stop them from continuing their work. Of course, we
shouldn't go to the extreme of suspecting *every* foreign scholar of being
a missionary in disguise.

I think the benefits of letting in foreign scholars far outweigh the
problems, so I wish Indian academicians would mobilize themselves and do
something about this.

Gail Coelho